Indian Mythology Stories

1. Bhaktha Prahalada :

Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakasapu were demon brothers.Lord vishnu had killed Hiranyaksha in his Varaha
avatar.Hence Hiranyakasapu hated Lord vishnu very much.He put all rishi and munis and harass them to
take revenge on Lord vishnu as they were chanting his names all the time.

He destroyed all the yagas conducted in his kingdom so that nobody could perform the puja instead he ordered the people to
worship him like God.Who ever refused to worship him were whipped by a leash.

Since he was the lord of three world he meted out the same treatments to Gods also.All the
prominent Gods were under the control of Hiranyakasapu and he used to order them to obey them.

Unable to bear the humilations from him, all Gods first went to Lord Brahma and sought protection from
him.Even Lord Brahma was unable to mitigate the sufferings of other Gods.Hence he too went with
them to Lord Vishnu and narrated in detail the evil acts of Hiranyakasapu on heaven and earth.

After listening to them patiently Lord Vishnu promised them to take one more avatar to kill
Hiranyakasapu.

Hiranyakasapu's wife gave birth to a male baby who was the greate devotee of Lord vishnu and
was an enlightened person.It is said that when Narada was singing the glory of Lord Vishnu, when
his mother was carrying the child in her womb, he was listening the story from inside and was also
nodding to the story told to his mother by Narada.

When prahalada grew up, he was initiated in to a school called gurukal for studying vedas and
other subjects to gain knowledge in the world.

When ever chance permitted prahalada used to sing the
glory of Lord Vishnu and was encouraging other boys also to sing with him instead of praising his
father.The teachers carried the tales to Hiranyakasapu about prahalada's chantings in their
absence.

Hence Hiranyakasapu decided to punish young child prahalada for disobeying his instructions.

He also started illtreating his own son by not providing him food and water etc and putting him in
solitary confimenment.However prahalada refused to give up prayer to lord Vishnu.

Hiranyakasapu was very much worried man and asked his soldiers to put him in frying pan with boiling oil but nothing
happened to him to the greats of lord vishnu.

Then Hiranyakasapu asked his soldiers to throw him
from the hill.Even then prahalada escaped death by the grace of lord vishnu.As a last resort he
asked his people to pour poison in milk and give it to him for drinking.However he survived this
attempt also due to the grace of God.

Out of frustations and desperations he asked prahalada where is his God?
prahalada said that lord is everywhere.Then Hiranyakasapu with mace in his hand asked prahalada whether the lord was
there in the pillar.

prahalada said yes and to test him Hiranyakasapu slammed his mace in to the
pillar with force. When the pillar collapsed a miracle happened.Lord vishnu with half body of lion
and half body of man emerged from the pillar with a big roar.He chased Hiranyakasapu took him into
his lap and tored his body with his bare hands and with sharp fingers of a lion.It was neither
evening nor night, neither inside the palace nor outside the palace and most importantly it was
neither by a man nor an animal.He had obtained such a boon from Lord Brahma to avoid death from
any body.

But Lord Vishnu was clever enough to fulfill all the three conditions and yet killed the
demon Hiranyakasapu to free people from his clutch and also freed all the Gods from his hold.

Bhaktha prahalada was immensely pleased to see the lord in person and sang his glories as a
true devotee.Lord vishnu made him the king and after being pacified by prahalada went back to
heaven with his wife lakshmi.Prahalada ruled the country for many years and was known as chief
devotee of lord Vishnu.

2. Dhusyanta

Once upon a time there was a king called Dhusyanta in Ayodhya.He was very handsome,honest and
popular.

Lord Indra had sent his dancing damsel and beauty called menaka to disturb the penance of
Vishwamitra who wanted to usurp powers of Indra.Hence menaka was sent to forest and started dancing
in the presence of Vishwamitra who was in deep trance.

However when his thapas was disturbed by
menaka he fell for her beauty.Through their union a child was born and having her work done menaka
left the child as it is and went back to Indra loka.

Vishwamitra too went away his way leaving the child careless. When it started raining in the jungle a bird called "Sakuntal" tried to protect the
child from rains by faning her feathers over the child like umberalla.A rishi called Kanvar was
passing through the jungle when he heard the cries of the baby in the woods.

The rishi felt pity for the child and named it Sakuntala after the name of the bird called
sakuntal.When the femal child grew old, she was looking beautiful and was seen by the king Dhusyanta
who had gone there for hunting.The king felt for her beauty and promised to marry her after going
back to ayodhya.He gave her a ring for easy identification and access to the palace with his seal.

The king went away to ayodhya after hunting and forget about her completely due to the curse
of sage Dhoorvasa.

When sakuntala was in deep thought about the king and her future with him, she
could not hear the calls made by sage Dhoorvasa for water and food.When he realise the situation,
the sage cursed her that her would be husband would forget the past and refused to identify her
when she is in person.Sakuntala was unware of the curse thrown at her by sage Dhoorvasa.

In the mean while kanvar muni made all elaborate arragements for sakuntala to join her
husband king Dhusyanta.

On the way to ayodhya, sakuntala felt thirsty and went to the pond to
drink water.She did not notice, the ring given by the king had fallen in water.

When the
entourage reached the palace, the guards refused her entry in to the palace and she could not produce
the ring for identification.The king also refused to acknowledge her as his wife and sent her
back to her fathers house.Sakuntala blamed her bad luck and went back to forest where she gave
birth to a male baby.

In the mean while a fisherman who was fishing in the pond, got into his net
a big fish.He took it away to his wife and cut into pieces for cooking.To his surprise he found
a golden ring with king's insignia on it.He took the ring to the king and narrated about the
fishing.

When the king saw the ring, he remembered it that he had given it to sakuntala at the
time of private marriage in the ashram of kanva muni.He immediately sent his soldiers with an
army to bring back sakuntantala to his palace.

The representative of the king met kanva muni in his ahsram and explained in detail the
king's order to bring back sakuntala with great pomp.The rishi was pleased to send sakuntala with
gift and a big send off.The king was over joyed to see sakuntala back as his wife and married her
formally in presence of his people and relatives.

After few years she was sent back to her father
for delivery as she was carrying at the time.A son was born to her and named as bharat.When the
king reached the ashram to see his wife and son, he was shocked to see a boy riding on the back
of a tiger.Later on he came to know that the boy was his own son after whom the name of the country
became famous.

3. Dhurva

Once upon a time there was a king called Uttampal.He had two wives.One was favourite and another was non favourite.
His first wife son was called Dhurva.

One day he came running to his father and
asked "Father can I sit on your lap?" to which the King replied "Oh, Yes my boy!" and Dhurva
sat on his lap.In the mean while second son also came to the palace and wanted to sit on his
father's lap.

The king's second wife followed her son and saw Dhurva sitting on his father's lap which
infuritated her.She pulled out Dhurva and asked her son to sit on the lap of the King.

Dhurva started crying and went to his mother and narrated the story.

His mother consoled her son and bemoaned her
bad luck for being king's unwanted wife.Dhurva asked her remedy to change their fortune.She told
him that only Lord Vishnu would provided him wealth and welfare.

When dhurva questioned her as to where he should find Vishnu, she advised him to do severe penace in the deep forest for several
years with utmost concentration, bhakthi and straight forwardness.

Dhurva went into jungle to find Lord Vishnu.There he met Narada muni who asked him to penace to get the dharshan of Lord Vishnu.
Dhurva followed Narada's advise and started severe penace.After many years of hard and stearn
penace like living on water, air and standing on water and was finally blessed by Lord Vishnu's
dharshan .

Dhurva was thrilled to see the Lord in person.Vishnu asked him to ask any boon that he
cherished most.

Dhurva who was always worried about his mother's condition asked the lord to make his
mother favourite of the king and love and affection from his father.

Lord Vishnu was pleased very much
about the boy's simplicitity and affection for his mother.After granting the boon, Lord Vishnu
blessed the boy and vanished.

Dhurva reached home with pomp and fanfare.people lined up both sides of the road to see him
in person.

The king welcomed Dhurva with a warm hug and took him to his mother who had become
favourite with the kings.

In due course the king made Dhurva new king of the kingdom and went away
to forest for good.Dhurva ruled the country for several years and finally went to heaven where he
was made a shining north star permanently. Thanks to Lord vishnu's boon.

4.King Harichandra

King Harichandra was the ruler of Ayodhya.He was very straight forward, god fearing and a noble
king.His wife name was Taramati and he had a son name rohit.

One day sage vishwamitra appeared in his dream and the king donated his kingdom in the dream
at the request of sage vishwamitra.

The king was surprised to see early in the morning in his palace
and asked the king to ful fill his donation.The king had no time to consult any body and due to his
straight forwardness to truth, agree to vacate the palace to fulfill his vow.

Vishwamitra was not satisfied with the gift and asked the king to give some amount as
dhakshana to give full effect to the gift.Harichandra promised through his labour and hand over the
amount as dhakshana to vishwamitra as early as possible.Before this even took place, there was a
big debate in the court of indra and they wanted to know which king on earth was most powerful,
generous and honest.

All the people in the assembly said that King Harichandrea of Ayodhya was the
only man to fulfill all the conditions.

There was an arguement between sage vashista who was his
kula guru and sage vishwamitra about the choice.Vishwamitra said that unless tested king
Harichandra he would not agree to the decision of the court.He wanted to find out whether king
Harichandra keeps his promise or not.Therefore he appeared in the dream of king and asked for
donation of his kingdom and all of his property.King Harichandra with his wife Taramati went to kasi and stood in the market for auctioning self,
wife and son.

One person took his wife and son for domestic work after paying the bidding amount
to king Harichandra.

Then a state government watchman of a symmentry came and purchased Harichandra
after successfully bidding for him.In the mean while vishwamitra was giving him trouble from time
to time to see whether the king was straying from the path of truth and straight forwardness.Queen
Taramati was also subjected to ill treatment and neglected.Her son Rohit was not spared by sage
vishwamitra from harassement.

One day when Rohit was playing in the garden near by a snake was asked to bite Rohit and
caused his death.

When some children who were playing with Rohit saw this they at once went to
his mother and informed her about the death of her son.

Crest fallen, crying and bemoaning her bad
luck, she carried the dead body of her son to the symmetry and tried to burn him without paying
funeral charges to her husband who was in charge of symmetry and collector of recovery charges.

When he heard the footsteps of human being in the symmetry, in the night, he came rushing down to
the place where his son's body were kept for funeral.Since it was dark, he could not identify his
wife and did not know that his own son was dead.When he realised the truth he was shocked beyond
his belief that such a misfortune can happen to him.

Since he was unable to pay the cess, he asked
his wife to keep her head down so that he could kill her for not paying the taxes.His wife obliged
duly and he took a sword in his hands to severe her head.He took a mighty swing and came down
heavily one her to cut her neck on her body.

Suddenly his hand was held by some body and as he looked
back, he was surprised to see his hand held back firmly by Lord Vishnu.He atonce felt at the feet
of lord and asked him to give strength to overcome sufferings.

Lord Vishnu blessed young Rohit and due to his grace, Rohit came back to life.Wife Taramati
was also over joyed to see her son alive again.King Harichandra was happy to meet again his wife and
son.

He went back to Ayodhya with wife and son and met vishwamitra to handover dakshanya to him.
The sage instead handed over the kingdom and other property to king Harichandra and praised him
profusly for bearing misfortune with devotion and dignity.King Harichandra lived several years
after coming back to palace.His public were happy and prosperous.There was no disease in his
kingdom.